Significant Others
by potterology
Summary: Conversations that need to be had, following S3 episodes. "So, what's worse? Grieving for what you never had, or mourning what you had and lost?" - Fair warning, here be mother/daughter feels. Not particularly happy ones at that.
1. Mothers and Daughters

**WARNING**: Possible **spoilers** for 3x01? I'm not sure, it's nothing specific. Don't get me wrong, I loved that Emma was finally punching back at Snow and Charming, cause damn I'd be pissed too and if you think about it, the whole situation is super messed up and weird, but every time I think about what was taken from Snow, my heart breaks.

So, here, have my feelings.

* * *

"It's not easy, you know," comes a quiet voice in the darkness. Neverland seemed most comfortable in the dead of night and so it has insofar stayed that way; since their arrival two days ago, moonlight and shadow had settled around them, and in the calmer moments Emma swears she can almost feel herself sinking into it.

The regression comes on fast - if her embarrassingly frank dress down of her parents before the whole mermaid incident is anything to go by - and surprisingly painful. Disquiet, equal parts desperation and bitterness, has crept into her bones. It is nothing she does not remember, but she regrets allowing it to resurface. Since arriving in Storybrooke, a combination of friends, a son and a job she could actually be proud of had helped push down the rough rolling stone she had been for years, but Neverland had brought it all rushing back - well, it made sense that if there could be no future, there was only room for the past. Were she not a raging bitch, Emma might actually agree with Tamara. Magic sucked.

Mary Margaret steps out onto the river bank where Emma is picking at the grass. Neal's cutlass rests across her thighs and her keen eyes focus on the tree line, the river, her shoes, astutely avoiding her mother. There can be no eye contact - Emma cannot risk it, not yet. Whatever sourness that had climbed under her skin was now joyfully clinging to her anger, and catching her mothers eye now would ruin it all. The disgruntled orphan within her applauds her self control.

So, mother and daughter sit in silence for a few slightly awkward minutes. It comes as no surprise to either woman that Mary Margaret, with a tone which smacks of Snow White, breaks the silence first.

"It is _not_ easy," she begins, her voice so low it almost gets lost under the noise of the babbling river. "I had a baby - a beautiful, perfect baby - for only a single moment, and yet somehow it was so much more than enough to make me realise that every second of pain I'd endured up until_ that moment_ was worth it. Because she existed. Because she was out there somewhere. Because I knew that the world - _every_ world - was a better place with her in it." Mary Margaret sniffs loudly and turns to glare at a curtain of blonde hair. Emma can feel real, deep, aching pain radiating from her mother, and despite the guilt that rises in her, she still cannot quite look up.

They both know it has nothing to do with defiance or rebellion; her refusal to face her mother is pure cowardice. Still, it doesn't prepare her for what comes next:

"So, how dare you." That does it. Emma looks up, eyes wide, mouth open. Mary Margaret holds an expression one can only call 'contempt'. Not cruel, never, but certainly unkind.

It's just enough to shock Emma out into the open. "Excuse me?"

Mary Margaret doesn't hesitate. "You heard me. How _dare_ you. How dare you imply that this has been anything but heartbreaking for me too. Sometimes I think you forget, so let me make it perfectly clear. Twenty-eight years ago, I held my dying husband in my arms and my only thought was of a tiny, little girl and the possibility I would never see her again. And then one day, in the middle of a street in a world not my own, I woke up. Can you imagine my surprise at finding out that my baby was... gone? Just gone. And I will never see her again. I will never hold her in my arms. I won't ever hear her laugh for the first time, or kiss her goodnight, or read her a bedtime story, o-or - oh." She chokes on a strangled sob, but continues on, the back of her hand pressing tightly against her mouth.

"I know this is hard for you, really I do, and you have every right to be angry. But it's hard for me too._ I_ am angry, too. Don't tell me we have the life experience, because we don't. Henry is still a kid, still little enough to trust you, to love you without conditions, and even though I wouldn't change a single hair on your head, I can't help but wish things were different. You never knew us - but for nine months I knew you. I have loved you since the day I found out you existed. So, what's worse? Grieving for what you never had, or mourning what you had and lost?"

Without apology or second glance, Mary Margaret stands and moves to leave. Having finally spoken her peace, she seems - feels - lighter. The tension eases away from her shoulders; by osmosis, whatever disturbance there had been between them slips away too and something akin to understanding replaces it.

"Loss," Emma says suddenly. Mary Margaret pauses and at first Emma thinks it's because she might be waiting for more - _no, please, don't expect more, I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel here_ - but a small sigh, followed by a soft footstep, tells her she just wasn't loud enough.

So, a little more confidently, she repeats, "Loss is worse."


	2. Gently, So

_A/N - This is going out to all the people who were so kind and thoughtful. But in particular: Andi88, ginnygoodwin and AngelMoon Girl. Can't thank you enough for the lovely words. _

* * *

Snow White is no stranger to pain. Not the physical, certainly not the emotional. Years of watching the people she loved die or be stolen from her, of being chased from one realm to the next, beaten and dragged and clawed at, having her heart soiled, ripped out and replaced had hardened her to the cruelties of reality. Thin-skinned, she is not.

Yet somehow, despite all of her experience, she finds herself ill-prepared for Emma's confession.

_Orphan_. Such a vile word, far more implication than noun, sympathetic or malignant based on tone, a word full of battling ideals of worthiness and intention. Snow is no stranger to it either. Before Regina had shown her true colours, still safely ensconced within the confines of her late fathers high walls, she had never described herself as such. She was still loved, surely, by her stepmother and handmaidens and guards, and, of course, the people of her kingdom. Letters of condolences and love flooded the castle from almost every corner of the Enchanted Forest, and the realm surrounding it, each calling for her to remain strong and brave and graceful. Never once did she feel alone, not with the warmth of the castle's populace at her back.

Exile came swiftly. Fear and loathing, in increments small enough to overlook until it was too late, crawled under her skin, burrowing through muscle and bone, settling somewhere within the borders of her kind heart. Goblin twins which set about reshaping her tender soul into something she did not recognise, something darker, something unkind - the skid into orphan, one bereft of home and place, was just so much _easier_ than she imagined. Years later, Snow had whispered promises to her unborn daughter of how she would never live a day without knowing just how much she was treasured and loved. _So much for that_.

The point is this: she understands, far more than she would like.

A few hours have passed since the 'confession' (or, as Snow is now coming to think of it, the exact moment she wanted to jump off a bridge) and the subsequent ambush by the Lost Ones; they are no closer to finding Henry, but spirits are higher than they have been in some time, so much so that Hook's suggestion at making camp is not immediately shut down with complaints and grumbling. They settle for the night and although Charming is acting in a manner one can only describe as weird, Snow is far too consumed by her daughter to take notice.

Blonde hair which often ends in soft curls - at the moment tied back with a worn out shoe string - frames Snow's eyes, her mothers cheekbones and Charming's cleft chin. Emma is taller than her mother, shorter than her father, and, while always beautiful, in certain lights she is nothing short of breathtaking. She is strong, in every sense of the word, and Snow is so very proud of the person her daughter has grown into. But she wants to know more, wants to know what lessons precipitated the changes in her daughter from little girl to rebellious teen to jailbait to bail-bonds person, she wants to know why Emma built her walls so high and the names of every person who ever hurt her. (Social security numbers, too, on the off chance that Snow might be able to hunt them down and make them regret it.) Curiosity burns in her blood and she simply cannot let it go.

Mary Margaret would have sat down next to her roommate and waited out the stormy glare. Snow sits down and stares back.

"What?" Emma asks, a little unsure and trying not to start an argument. Hook's coat is wrapped around her shoulders. The nights are becoming bitterly cold and according to the pirate, it's Pan's doing. Apparently, the little bastard likes reminding them he's watching; while Snow is not about to give in to petty scare tactics, even she has to admit as far as scare tactics go, it's really quite effective. Little puffs of steam float upwards as Emma breathes deep, mentally preparing herself for whatever Snow is about to throw at her, and the part terrified, part indignant look on her face almost has her mother running for the hills. However, memories of spending a year living with a closed off, shell of a woman has her blood pounding with _questions, questions, questions_. So to hell with the weather.

"Have you ever had a birthday party?" It is clearly not the question her daughter was expecting. If the choked off snort is anything to go by, at least.

"Uh, no," Emma says, gawking slightly, caught too off guard to make up a lie or deflect with a joke. Snow nods. _Oy_, she thinks, _this is so going to hurt_.

"Christmas or New Years?"

Still confused, Emma answers, "New Years."

"Dark chocolate or milk chocolate?" Snow actually knows this one, but asks it anyway, just to reaffirm that yes, she actually does know something, anything, about her daughter.

"Dark." Snow can't suppress the triumphant grin. "What are you doing?"

_Can't stop now._ "Play any sports?"

Recognition flares in Emma's eyes, understanding finally, but thankfully decides to humor her mother anyway, "Lacrosse, middle school."

"Ever broken a bone?"

"Both legs, my right arm and wrist, left eye socket and six ribs."

"How?"

"Do you actually want to know or are you asking because you think you should know?"

_Shots fired_. Snow tries not to flinch, really she does, and doesn't quite manage it. In for a penny, in for a pound, she supposes. Agony is subjective - it's going to hurt one way or another, so what does her reasoning matter in the long term? Feigning nonchalance, she breaks the sudden, slightly awkward silence that engulfs the two. "Both." Emma nods like she understands. She doesn't.

"Okay." Deep breath, for the plunge. "Left leg when I was eight, jumping off a swing; right leg falling off the roof of my high school science building." A small smirk from Snow. "My arm and two ribs were courtesy of a pretty crappy foster dad." Flinch. Pain. God_dammit_. "I punched a drug dealer in Miami weirdly and broke my wrist." Rolled eyes. "The eye and leftover ribs happened in prison. After Henry. There was a fight. I didn't win." Emma folds her hands neatly in her lap, resolutely not looking at her mother.

Snow's tongue freezes to the roof of her mouth, even though a thousand more questions fill the back of her throat. Her curiosity is satisfied to an extent, certainly, but there is none of the wholeness she expected to feel. Facts do not equate to experience it seems; a bitter taste, it is most assuredly. Pain lances through her heart - the black spot she sees every time she closes her eyes, scorched onto the back of her eyelids as it is, must have surely grown with every gravelly-voiced, forced confession. She doesn't have a great angle with which gauge Emma's expression, but from her profile Snow hazards a guess that she's sitting somewhere between livid and mortified.

"I lost my virginity when I was fourteen to a twenty-six year old neighbour who drove a Harley. His name was Chuck and he sold weed to my foster brothers." She is pithy. Her tone is one meant to cause pain, injecting just enough anger and rightful blame to succeed. Snow doesn't even try to hold back her discomfort, but if Emma notices, she keeps going regardless. "I learned how to break into cars because the people I was staying with at the time took curfews seriously and liked to lock the door after eight o'clock. If you weren't in the house by then, you weren't getting in period. Sleeping on a stoop sucks _major_ ass."

"You can stop."

There is no mistaking the bitterness in her daughter's face, "No, no, you wanted to know." Emma huffs, angry and building up steam, "I tended bar for two years before a customer tried to rape me in an alley. Tried being the keyword. I broke his nose, he complained to the manager, I lost my job and wound up on the street."

"Emma..."

"Boston wasn't any better, but I found a decent job at least. With my parole officer, ironically. He'd made the leap to full on bail-bondsman and needed a secretary."

"You've made your point-"

"No, I don't think I have." Emma jumps to her feet, practically seething; it seems Snow has finally succeeded where Mary Margaret failed: the walls Emma has constructed around herself so carefully have cracked and now an entire ocean is threatening to drown them both. "For all the shit I've been through, I turned out pretty damn great. You sent me away, packed me off in some freaking magic wardrobe because you wanted to keep terrible crap from happening to me. Well, guess what? Terrible crap happened anyway. I could have used you - I _needed _you_, _dammit- but you weren't there. And that is on you!" Teeth bared, fists clenched, eyes watery, she looks down right vicious. "_That_ is on _you_." Snow opens her mouth to say something, anything at all, but is cut off before she gets a chance. "Don't say you're sorry. It's not gonna change anything. I'm still going to be an orphan and you're still going to be a bad mother. Apologising won't make it better."

And there just isn't anything left to say after that.

Emma marches off, too angry to sleep. Snow stays where she is, listening to nothing but the birds, the wind and her heart breaking just that bit more.


	3. What You Know and What You Expect

_A/N - Thank you once again to absolutely everyone who has review or favourited or followed the story. Last night's episode was really the first in the third season so far that I've really thought was absolutely excellent television. I was surprised and touched and just ugh. The whole thing was great. (Mulan broke my goddamn heart.)_

* * *

When pressed, she can only recall that it was a Wednesday afternoon, close to a hundred degrees and roughly sometime in September. She remembers stepping out into the sunshine, dressed in haven't-been-worn-in-a-year clothes and shoes which no longer fit, and being pointed in the direction of the prison parking lot, where her - _his_ - yellow Volkswagen was parked neatly in the back. In the trunk were two pitifully roomy Office Depot own brand cargo carriers, containing the entire contents of her life: her baby blanket, some paperwork from a slew of social workers, a change of clothes and a roll of bills Emma guessed totalled up to five hundred dollars. God, he was a cheapskate.

The sunshine had warmed the car to an unbearable temperature and the AC had never worked, so she rolled down the front windows, tied back her hair and gunned it along the highway, Phoenix to Albuquerque, laughing the whole way.

Most of the time, driving off into the desert feels like it happened a thousand years ago, or to somebody else. But then there are moments such as this, in a ramshackle treehouse, quite literally standing among the remnants of a life in ruin, and all she can taste is clay dust and dry heat. She practically chokes on the desperation, the need to not be here, to run until her legs break and her feet bleed.

"...it's just a place to sleep," Mary Margaret says behind her. Emma resists the scoff, still caught up in feeling the Arizona heat, but not the snarky comment that follows. Somehow she can't quite conjure up an image of her admittedly somewhat prissy mother knowing anything about just needing a place to sleep. Sure, she's seen her in action - Disney had a lot to answer for in way of miscalculating just how much of a badass Snow White truly was - but Mary Margaret does not seem the type to know real desperation.

Emma sees three people: Miss Blanchard, her best friend, the mild-mannered, put-together school teacher; Mary Margaret, her overbearing but well-meaning mother, a little too perfect and a little too pushy for her own good; and, finally, Snow White, the pretty, pretty princess who lives in a castle and talks to birds. Emma likes Snow White the least, the memory of a slightly better than useless Aurora becoming her template for all Enchanted Forest princesses. Unfortunately, however, it's the version of her mother Emma sees the most in Neverland, and despite the great right hook and the bows and arrows and general excellency at this whole woodland navigation, she cannot seem to get past it. Though she knows she's being petty and rude, the words come out before she can stop them anyway.

"What would you know about that?"

It is the completely wrong thing to say, it comes out in the worst petulant tone, and the hurt flashing across Mary Margaret's face makes her cringe inside.

"I didn't always have a canopy bed and a palace," her mother bites back, huffing a little and almost rolling her eyes at Emma's naivety. The mean little kid inside of her dissolves instantly, as does the weird flightiness she had felt since stepping into the treehouse, quickly replaced by guilt. _Daughter of the year, right here._ She's about to apologise when Mary Margaret interrupts, "I had a place like this too, once."

Huh.

Well, okay, she's read the book, she knew everything hadn't been sunshine and daisies, but actually hearing it out loud gives her pause. Snow White had been a fugitive. A bandit. _A runaway_. Emma remembers sleeping through bitterly cold nights in the backseat of the bug. Siphoning gas from older cars when she couldn't afford to pay for it herself. Sneaking into public gyms to use the showers when motels weren't an option and stealing quarters out of washers at the laundromat to buy McDonalds. Things had turned around quickly once she got into bailbonding, but for about a year or so, things had been dicey.

It's hard to imagine anything being dicey for a fairytale princess.

But then, how different could things have been, really? What was shivering in a car compared to shivering under a bush? Was sticking a tube down someones gas tank any better, or worse, than stealing a horse? Feeling a combination of respect, disbelief, and maybe more than a little pride at recognising something of herself within her mother, she asks, "You did?" Her tone is not lost on Mary Margaret. In another life, Emma might be six, captivated by a bedtime story about her Mama's daring sword fights.

"A tree stump, when I was running from the Queen," she says with a shrug, feigning nonchalance and succeeding rather effectively. Emma can't help but be impressed, and a bit ashamed that she hadn't thought about it sooner. Because of course Snow White knew what it was like to be left with nothing. The woman had been hunted for years; Graham had been living proof.

Later, after they've dealt with the mess of Tinker Bell and Regina's surprisingly touching turnaround, Emma sidles up to her mother.

Neverland is still making her crazy and distant - and, if she's honest, kind of a dick - but some of it has starting ebb away the closer she gets to Henry. Mary Margaret pretends not to notice her at first, but that fades too as Emma starts talking.

"I'm sorry," she mutters, low enough to not wake their sleeping companions. How it is that mother and daughter always somehow wind up the last to drift off, she will never know, but it serves its purpose for now. Mary Margaret looks up, a little confused, so Emma clarifies, "For what I said the other night. I was angry and you were just trying to get to know me." She pauses for a long moment, waiting for the remembered hurt to leave her mothers shoulders. "You're not a bad mother. Kind of the opposite, actually. If I'd had someone like you growing up - just one foster mom who was half as good a mother as you are - things would -_ I would_ - have been so different. So, I'm sorry."

Without looking, because she already wants to cry as it is, she pressed her palm lightly against her mother's shoulder and shuffle back over to where Hook has made her a makeshift bed. She doesn't see Mary Margaret's watery smile, but it follows her for every step.


	4. Solving for X

_A/N - I didn't really find anything too compelling in 3.04 Nasty Habits to write fully about, so he's 3.05's instalment from a slightly different tense and a little introspective. I just. Ugh. Emma and Snow were so on point in this episode, as was Regina. Such a great ep._

_Apologies for how short this is. _

* * *

_I love you, I love you, I love you. _

_I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry._

_Love me, love me, love me. _

Don't go.

Pity and fear coil around you, not unfamiliar, certainly unwelcome. Having spent so much time playing push-pull, teetering daily between _stay_ and _leave_, you almost miss the sentiment buried under the whispers and platitudes you mutter into your mother's coat. How it got there, you don't know; it must have crept up on you in the cold night, perhaps you were bitten by something, maybe someone spiked your coconut. Not that it matters: it is here now and most adamant in staying put. Later, in the comforting dark of your makeshift tent, you search your skin for puncture wounds, possible points of entry and exit where the love goes in and the bitterness drains out, disappointed when you find none. If you were thinking rationally, you would no doubt understand that love is an emotion, something which you develop over time and increased familiarity - sometimes unconditional, sometimes not; Henry was a love born overnight, but Mary Margaret grew from friend to family - and generally cannot be switched on and off as you please. But this is Neverland and you are not thinking rationally.

So. Break it down. Do the math. Solve for _x._

A childhood - who are you kidding, an adulthood too - full of rejection (abandonment issues) plus an inability to let down your guard (emotional blackhole) equals Henry (all you have left) plus absentee parents return (loathing/desperation/_please don't leave me again_).

It's like this.

First, complete the multiplication: An insofar spectacularly pathetic, not to mention lonely, life plus a continuous battery of being lied to and sent away and left behind has short circuited your sympathy brain cells, equals the only thing worth living for, the reason you stayed in Storybrooke at all even though everything in you was screaming not to, plus two fragile connections threatening to seal up all the careful stitching your son has done to your stunted soul.

Next, group the terms: Apathy, terror, pain plus unloved, unwanted orphan equals a chance at being someone better plus a model upon which to base your growth.

Subtract the shit: Minus pain plus pain equals Henry plus Mom and Dad.

Divide it out: Pain divided by a real, honest to God family, spread out between the three of them.

Therefore, X: Emma Swan, healed and whole, put back together by a literal king and all his best (wo)men.

It's a nice thought, really. One you even dared to indulge back when you were traipsing around the forest with your mother - daydreams of getting back to Henry and your father, baking cookies in the kitchen, family dinners and photo albums (which you of course do not have, but it's a daydream, so fuck off logic) filled your tiny mind on a near constant basis - but Neverland has no patience for such optimism. In the poisonous jungle, even the wind carries the message: abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

Abandon it, you did.

You needed the heart. There was no chance of getting the message to Henry any other way, and you're tired of playing nice. You are sick of being bested by a pre-pubescent Patrick Bateman and if getting your hands dirty meant finally having the upper hand against this fairytale psycho, then dammit it was time to get your fingers sticky.

What felt like years ago, your mother had wrapped her arms around you, told you to get used to being number one in someones book, had torn Mulan a new asshole when she tried to leave you up a beanstalk, was everything you imagined your mother would be. Fierce. Protective. Equal parts lover and fighter. And as badly as you wanted to sink into the inviting role of doting daughter, experience taught you that love was little more than a handful of sand. Grab too much and it slips through your fingers. Shaking in the circle of your arms, ashamed you assume and probably angry, your mother starts to feel more and more like sand, ready to wriggle away from you forever at any moment, and the feeling overwhelms you. Has you pressing your nose into her coat and inhaling, just in case this time is the last time, in case this is all you get,_ in case she sends you back_.

By the time you let go, it's nowhere near enough and you have to clench your fists to resist dropping to your knees pleading for forgiveness. You share a short conversation later about doubt and Regina seems to quell your mother's initial worry - but that doesn't stop her from pulling you aside afterwards.

"I get it. If it had been you, I would probably do the same. But, Emma, listen to me when I tell you: if lay down with the dogs, you wind up bit by the fleas."

_I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry._

_Please, don't go._


End file.
